Furloughed government workers rally in SF to demand end...

1of2Dana Bolles and Jonas Dino employees of NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View rally outside the EPA Region 9 Offices in San Francisco on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019, to protest the continuing shutdown of the government that will keep them from being paid on Friday, Jan. 11, 2019.Photo: Jana Asenbrennerova / Special to The Chronicle

2of2James Munson, an employee of the Environmental Protection Agency, holds his 3-month-old son, Ryan, at the rally outside the EPA Region 9 Offices in San Francisco on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019, to protest the continuing shutdown of the government that is keeping them from receiving a paycheck on Friday, Jan. 11, 2019.Photo: Jana Asenbrennerova / Special to The Chronicle

Four dozen federal workers took to the street in downtown San Francisco on Thursday, demanding an end to the federal shutdown that is forcing them to shop at dollar stores and eat macaroni and cheese for dinner.

The protest in front of the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters was peaceful and passionate, and coincided with similar demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and other cities.

Marching in a circle at the building’s front steps were environmental lawyers, a NASA technician and a housing discrimination investigator, along with their colleagues, spouses, babies and dogs.

“Trump’s wall is imaginary, but my bills are real,” read a sign carried by Mali Kigasari, an investigator with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She said she should be checking on a couple of dozen workplace discrimination cases instead of cooling her heels.

“Every day I’m not working means there are important things that aren’t getting done,” she said.

People rally outside EPA Region 9 Offices in San Francisco to protest the continuing shutdown of the government and resulting furloughs that are financially hurting 800,000 federal employees and families. On Thursday, January 10, 2019. San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Jana Asenbrennerova / Special to The Chronicle

The partial federal shutdown, which is anything but partial to about 800,000 idled and unpaid workers, was in its 20th day Thursday and will almost certainly exceed the 21-day federal shutdown of 1995, currently the longest. President Trump wants $5.7 billion to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and vows not to reopen the government unless he gets it. Congressional Democrats say no.

On Friday, Kigasari, like countless other federal workers, will miss her first paycheck. She said she’s “made different decisions” about how to live her daily life without income, and those decisions include charging her groceries to her credit card at 25 percent interest.

James Munson, an EPA protection specialist, marched while carrying his 3-month-old son, Ryan.

“We’re sending the message that we’re people, that we have families, that we need to get paid,” he said.

Whether or not he gets paid, Munson said, the grocery store still charges $35 for a can of baby formula for Ryan.

Dana Bolles, a payload logistics specialist for NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, said she should be working on plant biology projects involving the International Space Station. Jesse Lueders, an EPA attorney, said he should be helping to decide whether builders have satisfied clean-air requirements.

Instead, both were circling the front steps of the EPA, along with Lueders’ dog, Solia, while three uniformed guards kept watch.

EPA lawyer Laurie Williams usually works inside. During the shutdown, her building pass doesn’t work. She was not allowed to enter the building to use the restroom.

The crowd carried signs that said “Life Must Continue, Shutdown Must End” and “Reopen Government Now” and “We Need Our Jobs, Not a Wall.”

As a man banged a snare drum, the crowd yelled, “Trump, let us work!”

The rally was co-sponsored by three federal employee unions representing scientists, engineers, technicians, lawyers and investigators. It was similar to other rallies Thursday in Washington, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati and other U.S. cities.

Among the San Francisco protesters, about the only one who seemed pleased was Solia, who has been taken on lots of extra walks in Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland while Lueders waits for the deadlock to end.

Chronicle staff writer Steve Rubenstein first joined The Chronicle reporting staff in 1976. He has been a metro reporter, a columnist, a reviewer and a feature writer. He left the staff in 2009 to teach elementary school and returned to the staff in 2015. He is married, has a son and a daughter and lives in San Francisco. He is a cyclist and a harmonica player, occasionally at the same time.